Declan Rice kept big penalty secret from manager David Moyes last night before scoring the club’s and his first of the season.
Little fazes Dec but he admits he was a bit wobbly when the first was given which was ultimately disallowed via VAR.
However, that was sufficient to stop him fighting off the attentions of Jesse Lingard who himself was desperate to find the back of the net throughout the 90 minutes.
In the end the skipper at that time produced a penalty to be proud of to set the Hammers on their way to a great three points which saw us into fourth place for a while before the Chelsea win.
It may have been a different story had he let on to Moysie that historically he has a pretty dreadful record from the spot over his career.
Explaining the position to www.whufc.com he admitted his poor record when the spot kicks have come along. He said: “Actually, I’ll tell you a little story! When I was in the Academy, we used to go to tournaments and we used to get to finals and, no lie, I’ve had three penalties to win three different tournaments and missed every time.”
Asked if he had explained the situation to the manager he said: “No! But now it’s about composing myself and visualising it and practising them in training.
Obviously when Nobes is on the pitch, he takes them, but I need to be ready as if you don’t practice them and have the mentality that you’re going to hit the back of the net then you aren’t going to score.
“I had to change that and I did, so I’m buzzing to have scored.”
And he added of last night: ” I was more nervous for the first one than for the second one. It’s weird because I’ve never taken a pen in the Premier League before but I’ve kind of got a routine where I take a couple of deep breaths to compose myself and visualise the ball hitting the back of the net.
